RESPONDING TO HATRED WITH COURAGE & COMPASSION

Eva Schloss Earlier this year, Eva Schloss, Holocaust survivor and stepsister of Anne Frank, met with a group of high school students and their parents. The event was remarkable for what did not happen. The students, from several schools in the Newport Beach area, had been photographed at a house party standing around a swastika made of red plastic Dixie cups, raising their arms in a Nazi salute. The photo spread quickly on social media. The reaction was swift. Strangers threatened the students, calling for their expulsion, and worse. Politicians quickly condemned their behavior. Schloss did not condemn. She did not publicly shame. She met with the students privately, behind closed doors. She listened. Then she shared her story. “I was keen to hear from the students,” she explained. In ordinary times this would not be an unusual response. Schloss simply did what adults are supposed to do: gain perspective, listen with understanding and genuine concern, and use moral persuasion to teach an important lesson. Today, however, when extreme passions fueled by social media demand that every instance of hate speech receive severe, unqualified condemnation and that those participating in hate speech be publicly shamed and humiliated, acting like an adult is rare. It is, in itself, an act of moral courage. It is also a mark of wisdom. Public shaming works by exposure, by publicly revealing conduct that violates prevailing social norms. The natural response to being shamed is to hide, to deny, or to distract. Although shaming may be an effective means of discouraging bad behavior, it is a very poor way to change the person responsible for the behavior. For the development of character, a person must feel remorse in response to wrongdoing. If there is no remorse, there is no change of heart, no moral progress. A person can be ashamed to be seen doing something he or she does not really believe to be wrong. That is why being shamed does not necessarily change one’s mind. A person targeted by a shaming campaign is more likely to be defiant than remorseful. The message sent by those who seek to shame someone is that what really matters is getting caught, having one’s behavior exposed to public view. Motivation is irrelevant. Intent is irrelevant. Context is irrelevant. All that matters is what is seen. Newport Beach Mayor Diane Dixon and Mayor Pro Tem Will O’Neill issued a joint statement to the Washington Post stating, “That behavior is not acceptable and not reflective of our community’s collective character.” US Representative Katie Porter tweeted, “This has no place in Orange County.” What is the message to the kids? “Stop it! You are embarrassing us.” The underlying message is, “Whatever you do, don’t make it public.” Schloss had a completely different message. Her message was something like this: “You matter to me. I care about you so much I am going to sit down and listen to you. I want to understand you, and I want you to understand me. We matter to each other.” In the moral terminology of Immanuel Kant, she was treating the students as ends in themselves, not merely as means to an end. Whenever we use other people merely as means to an end—that is, use them only to get something we want— we do violence to them. Whether we use force, or deception, or manipulation, we send the message that we do not value the other as a person. We may care about their behavior, insofar as it affects us, but we do not care about them. Public shaming, as a means of social control, is a way of manipulating people to get them to do what we want. It is a form of disrespect. But talking to others, trying to understand them and trying to make ourselves understood, is entirely different. This is the territory of moral persuasion. This is what it means to be respectful. Simone Weil, a Jewish refugee from Nazi persecution, understood the dangers of trying to force others into agreement. Every use of force, she argued, turns both the user of it and the person subject to it into a “thing.” A more just, more ethical society, she insisted, can come only by taking time for reflection: “that halt, that interval of hesitation, wherein lies all our consideration for our brothers in humanity.” By imposing a halt on the circus of social media accusation and recrimination, Schloss provided the students of Newport Beach an opportunity to reflect. They responded the way most young people do in the presence of someone they have hurt. They apologized. And they committed themselves to righting the wrong, by working in their schools to promote understanding and peace and love. In an interview afterwards, Schloss remarked, “It’s probably a good thing this happened because it might help change not just the children’s attitudes, but attitudes everywhere.” She might be right, if only there are enough adults paying attention to what she did and how she did it.